


Early To Rise

by Junonine



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine
Genre: Gen, Peggy Sue, Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine Universe, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 14:06:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15753243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Junonine/pseuds/Junonine
Summary: Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.Written for the DoS Forums, inspired by 'Early is On Time' by Wafflelate.Peggy-sue Shikako and Aoba go back approximately 14 years to the day of her birth.





	1. Forum Links

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wafflelate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Dreaming of Sunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/408513) by Silver Queen. 
  * Inspired by [Early Is On Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13078869) by [wafflelate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Links to the DoS forums and the original content and discussion.

Inspired by **Early Is On Time** by **Wafflelate**

**Originally posted on the DOS FFNET Forums, as per links below.**

 

PS!Aoba (age 14)

  * pg 523 #15677 [PS!Aoba travels back to Shikako’s day of birth](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/180237/137948546/523/Recursive-Fanfiction#167941231) by [Juno-nine](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2169256/Juno-nine)
  * pg 525 #15721 [Shikaku POV](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/180237/137948546/525/Recursive-Fanfiction#167960587) by [Tirfarthuan](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2419610/Tirfarthuan)
  * pg 535 #15746 [A visit to Shikako’s mindscape](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/180237/137948546/525/Recursive-Fanfiction#167973438) [TekoloKuautli](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4618924/TekoloKuautli)


  * Pg 526 #15756[ Aoba promoted to Hokage’s Admin](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/180237/137948546/526/Recursive-Fanfiction#167984925) by[ Juno-nine](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2169256/Juno-nine)
  * Pg 526 #15759[ Minato follow up](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/180237/137948546/526/Recursive-Fanfiction#167985424) by[ donahermurphy](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/973954/donahermurphy)
  * Pg 527 #15781[ Naruto Ramen Chef](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/180237/137948546/527/Recursive-Fanfiction#167993012) by[ mdmichener](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2145412/mdmichener)
  * Pg 528 #15817[ Konoha sealing boom](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/180237/137948546/528/Recursive-Fanfiction#168006760) by[ Juno-nine](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2169256/Juno-nine)
  * Pg 528 #15820[ Shikamaru believes Shikako is eldest](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/180237/137948546/528/Recursive-Fanfiction#168006995) by[ clmineith](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1928919/clmineith)
  * Pg 529 #15841[ MDI and the cursed child](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/180237/137948546/529/Recursive-Fanfiction#168024325) by[ Snoara](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2196407/Snoara)
  * Pg 529 #15853[ Yoshino pov when Kushina is in labo](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/180237/137948546/529/Recursive-Fanfiction#168057212)ur by[ Tirfarthuan](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2419610/Tirfarthuan)
  * Pg 541 #16225[ Ibiki](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/180237/137948546/541/Recursive-Fanfiction#168547026) by[ Klaelman](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/465922/Klaelman)
  * Pg 543 #16275[ After Kyuubi](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/180237/137948546/543/Recursive-Fanfiction#168691158) by[ griffinheart67](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/5540576/)




	2. PS!Aoba travels back to Shikako’s Day of Birth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So apparently there was a discussion on the discord about Peggy Sue Aoba verse shooting back even further than Gelel.

 

Shikako spits the seal, pulls tight on the rubberband of time and space and stretches, sending their souls flying. She doesn't think they'll go far – a hastily conceived seal, cobbled together to leech energy from the Jashinists own ritual – but as long as they get _away._

But the rubber band _snaps_ and they go flying. Time flickerflashes past her, visible only in snatches. Here, Hotsprings. Here, Konoha. Here, Hidden Grass, Gelel, Land of Waves, the Academy-

-the Nara house, with two toddlers running around. The hospital.

 _Oh not this shit again,_ she thinks, as she hits the unreal but painful bulwark of 'this is where you begin'.

And tiny, baby Shikako starts to bawl.

-

Aoba shoots awake.

He staggers out of his bed, trips on the covers, slams his knee on the low table and knocks the towering stack of paperwork across the floor.

The he sits down and shivers for five minutes.

He feels… wrong. All kinds of wrong. Too short, too thin, arms and legs and proportions all _wrong_ … but he's alive. Throat intact. Not bleeding out and dying.

The paperwork is Intel, which means he's thirteen or older. The chunin vest slung over the back of a chair means he hasn't made special jounin yet. The daily news paper in the recycling pile – thank you, younger Aoba for being neat _and_ pedantic – says September 22.

That's

That's his kohai's birthday.

 _Actual_ Day Of Birth, if logic means anything.

That's all kinds of messed up.

Aoba runs a hand over his face and tries to think about what he needs to do. He isn't a Special Jounin yet, and he doesn't have the ability to just walk in and see the Hokage – even making an appointment would be difficult. Sarutobi is known for being visible to the younger ninja but that doesn't mean he has a lot of time-

No. The Hokage. Who is _Minato Namikaze_ now.

Shit. Shit shitshit.

"Inoichi," he says, with some amount of relief. Inoichi hadn't exactly been his _mentor_ in Intel, not the same way he'd been for Shikako – far too high demand for that – but he had been a team leader more than once and a giver of advice all the same.

And _finding him_ is just a matter of visiting the flower shop, not hunting around the tower. Usually.

Thankfully, this is one of those times – because Inoichi's wife is _also_ expecting a child tomorrow – so Aoba really only has to wait until opening hours and walk in.

"Ah, Aoba," Inoichi says with a smile. "How can I help? Flowers for Ai-chan, perhaps?"

He's teasing, but Aoba would _dearly_ love to never be reminded of that deeply embarrassing point in his life. That he has been dropped back into. Great.

He clears his throat and adjusts his glasses. "No, Inoichi-senpai. I, uh, _acquired_ some information that I think I should pass on. But it doesn't exactly follow standard reporting protocols."

Inoichi nods, smile fading a fraction but not looking like this is an unusual statement. It probably isn't, really. "This isn't a secure location," he cautions. "So if it can wait… or I can recommend someone at the tower to refer you to…"

"I-" and this is probably the tricky part. He _could_ say it. And then have them run the mindscan to validate it. But fourteen year old Aoba doesn't have the reputation or trust that thirty year old Aoba had – or even twenty or _sixteen_ – so Inoichi might just… laugh it off. Probably not. But still. It's a risk. "I don't think I should _say_ it."

Inoichi does quirk an eyebrow. And yeah, for good reason. Voluntary mind scans are not often requested. And while Aoba certainly has already learnt the Holding Door Mind Transmission, they both know he's not going to be the one in charge of this technique.

But Inoichi also looks _curious_ which is both the mark of a good Intel ninja and their downfall. "Yuuchou!" he calls to the young academy student tending to the flowers. "Please take over for a few minutes."

The girl calls a cheerful affirmative, and Inoichi leads Aoba into the backrooms of the shop.

Five minutes later – once Inoichi has released the technique – Aoba has the pleasure of seeing him _absolutely gobsmacked_. Even accounting for the fact that this Inoichi is a decade and a half younger, that's no small feat, and it absolutely makes him feel better about everything.

"So you see my problem," Aoba says, obliquely.

"We need to go to the Hokage," Inoichi says. " _Damn._ And- dammit, Shikaku. He's at the hospital right now. The Hokage himself wouldn't be able to pull him away for a briefing."

"Uh," Aoba says, because it's _too weird._ "Can we fill in the Hokage first? Because I think we might need to go and check-"

Inoichi doesn't take long to click, either. The fact that he didn't _instantly_ is probably because there are more immediate threats like the whole Kyuubi thing at hand. "You think she came back too."

Aoba shrugs. "Well, I sure as hell didn't cast the technique. Either she did it, or it was an accident that has a high chance of having sent both of us…"

"Right. First things first."

-

Aoba expects the meeting with Minato to be long and involved, and involving a lot of 'proving he is totally telling the truth about this time travel thing.'

He doesn't expect it to be Inoichi saying, "I know it sounds unbelievable, but I've confirmed it via mindscan. Aoba has experienced a level of spiritual temporal displacement and has memories of future events." and for Minato to nod and say, "time travel. Cool."

"Uh, yeah," Aoba says, thrown.

Minato laughs. Gods damn but he looks _so young_. And bright. And cheerful and alive. And in two weeks, it'll all be over. "Don't look so surprised," he says. "I invented a time travel seal once. I think. I wiped my memory afterwards so I can't be sure but I'm pretty sure that's what it was. So, how far was it?"

Aoba blinks, shaking off the same _what the fuck_ feeling that his kohai always gives him. And now that's an interesting comparison. "Uh. Fourteen years, give or take a few months."

"Huh," Minato says, "so. Tell me about it. Accidental? Purposeful? An impending end of the world disaster of which you have come to warn us?"

"Yes," Aoba says because _it was_.

"You're going to die in two weeks," Inoichi says, at the same time, blunt.

Minato sobers up, tossing aside the light-hearted smile and leaving the cool, competent shinobi battle commander that made him the best option for Hokage in all of Konoha. "I'm listening."

-

"Sorry to intrude," the Hokage says, stepping into Yoshino's hospital room. "Congratulations, by the way." He sets down a little gift basket, on the bedside table, because that is the kind of man Minato is. He'll pull you away from your newborn children to do your job, but he'll bring a gift and a smile when he does it.

Shikaku doesn't groan, but his eyes flick to Inoichi as if asking _really? Today?_ But duty waits for no man or baby, so he rises to stand.

Minato waves him down. "I'll set up privacy seals here," he says. "If it turns out to be true Yoshino will probably need to be read in on it anyway. If not… well. She can abide by infosec."

And doesn't that raise more questions than answers? Shikaku frowns. Then frowns some more, as the briefing happens. He looks at Inoichi, more than once, to confirm.

 _Yes, really_ , Inoichi says with his face.

"I'm going to mindscan to see if Shikako-chan also remembers," Inoichi says, slightly apologetically. "Then… we can go from there."

He isn't sure what he expects – best option would be a normal baby girl, no add ons, because surely being trapped as an infant would be _hell_ – but an adult or a confused mishmash also seem viable. A deep wall of black that _lurks_ threateningly is much, much less anticipated.

"Well," he says, drawing back and swallowing. "There's _something._ "

"Something?" Minato echoes.

"Similarities with some of the higher level Nara techniques," Inoichi says. "So definitely not a regular baby. But… I didn't get any actual information."

He frowns. Shikaku frowns. Minato also frowns, thumb and forefinger resting on his chin.

"Wait, let me try," Aoba says, idea sparking. "She's chakra hypersensitive – or something like it, long story – so it was probably defensive."

And his kohai is properly paranoid, as anyone with her lifestyle should be, so finding herself alone and incredibly helpless is just going to have her slamming down all barriers that she can.

It's not a matter of pushing through them, it's a matter of _asking._

Aoba isn't an expert in the Transmission technique – not enough to consistently use it in combat where it would be useful – but at a low, controlled level of just _connecting_ with someone, enough to knock politely on a door.

~ _Shikako? It's Aoba. It's okay. You're safe. We're in Konoha. Whatever happened sent us back in time. I know. That sounds silly, but that's what happened~_

And there's a _yanking_ feeling, and suddenly he's somewhere dark. The kind of mental space he doesn't usually bother with when using his technique, but which is more familiar to those who regularly use Mind-Body Switch and the like.

Shikako Nara – fourteen, dressed primly in her special jounin gear, and not a speck of blood in sight – emerges from the shadows. "Aoba! You're okay!"

The looming darkness (and yes, Inoichi was right to describe it as _lurking_ , vaguely menacing like) doesn't shift or falter. He is not being invited in.

The relief at seeing her is like a gutpunch, making the air around him flicker blue-green-yellow even though he should have better control than that. He's had a long day. Give him a break.

"Yeah," he agrees, softly. "Look, will you let Inoichi and Hokage-sama in? I can act as messenger if you want, but it'd be easier if they can talk to you."

"Oh, was that Inoichi-oji?" Shikako says, frowning. "My bad."

Out in his body, Aoba flickers through handseals and draws the others in – Shikaku grabs onto Inoichi grimly and Aoba has an instant to feel bad for him. Their mental forms slowly collase into being. Inoichi sharper and more defined than the rest, but Minato has a strange _weight_ to him, and Shikaku almost seems to fit in with the shadows.

"You couldn't tell?" Aoba asks, genuinely surprised. "I thought your sensing was-" he waves a hand trying to encompass that he really thought she would be able to identify who was in her head.

Shikako gives him a tolerant look. "Infants don't develop their own chakra system until about a week after birth," she says. "At this point I'm using Mom's residual chakra and all my senses are majorly fucked up."

"Well this is interesting," Minato says, looking at her.

She looks back at him, and oh, Shikako would have never even _known_ Minato. Other than the legend of the Fourth. "Modified Hiraishin," she says. "Flipped the temporal and spatial signs, attached a soul binding where the counterweight seal should have been and jammed it into a chakra draining seal."

She shrugs. None of those words mean much to Aoba (except the motherfucking _Hiraishin_ ) but Minato's eyebrows shoot right off his face.

"And you _survived?_ " He asks, aghast.

"For a given value," she says, dry as summer in the desert. "Aoba was _already dead_. We didn't have a lot to lose at that point."

"You're a fuuinjutsu user?" Shikaku asks. His mental image is slouching, hands in its pockets. And Aoba does feel bad for him. This is his daughter, who was born today, who has a whole life he knows nothing about. Has he been cheated of her childhood? He has to learn her, from scratch, like any stranger.

Shikako looks startled at the question. "Uh, I guess. Jiraiya-sama gave me a few pointers. I have a notebook-" she cuts herself off. "-or I did. I guess that's all gone now." The looming darkness rumbles, like thunder.

It's distinctly unnerving.

"I'm sure he'll be willing to help you again," Minato reassures her, radiating kindness and confidence. "And if he doesn't, I will."

He gaze snaps to him. "Right." She blows out a breath, seeming to contemplate and weigh her choices.

"I told him about October Tenth," Aoba says, "so he's prepared."

"Yeah, no," Shikako says vaguely, and rubs the bridge of her nose. "Ugh, so. Most of this is stuff we pieced together, it's not the full picture. Aoba, were you ever debriefed on Akatsuki?"

Aoba blinks. "Not… officially," he says, but it's kinda hard to miss stuff relating to _Itachi Uchiha._ When you're an Intel nin, anyway. "A gang of missing ninja."

"Right," Shikako sighs. "Probably not relevant right now, exactly. Except that they're targeting Jinchuriki."

And suddenly that puts _a lot_ of stuff back into context.

"Oh," Minato says, and his form seems to shimmer and shift. "And you think this wasn't just… a seal failure. It was an attack."

Shikako nods. "It was confirmed, actually. We don't know _who_ precisely, but uh. There is suspicion that…" she hesitates. "What I'm saying is we can't confirm that it _wasn't_ Uchiha Madara."

-

Actually, I really wanted the feels of Shikaku suddenly having a daughter from the future – who is a fully actualised human being! Not a baby! – and Shikako being effectively in sensory deprivation ('Don't worry, it's not the first time') and trying to cope with that.


	3. Aoba gets promoted to Hokage’s Admin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aoba gets promoted to Hokage’s Admin

"Oi, Yamashiro! New orders!"

Aoba catches the scroll one handed, registering half a beat too late that the sealed-classified-high-level nature of the orders scroll is probably beyond what 14 year old Aoba was probably recieving. At thirty, he'd had them more often than not but-

He cracks it open, then very nearly does a double take.

It's an assignment to the Hokage's office. Well, to the Hokage secretarial pool, which is about as close as you'd get.

He packs his desk with brisk efficiency, used to Intel's last minute transfers, and presents himself to the head of admin, scroll in hand.

He wonders what the hell she thinks about this, because her face gives absolutely nothing away. At 14 Aoba is a good ninja, a solid chunin with hints of the Special Jounin he's about to become, a few exemplary missions under his belt but nothing that stands head and shoulders above the rest of the Tower.

Then again, Minato is known to have an eye for talent - he trained Kakashi, after all - and has selected more than one of his assistants from the younger groups. Hell, his three ninja guard are all basically their cohort - Genma certainly is and Raidou and Iwashi are only a few years older.

"Akira? Is that Aoba?" The Hokage calls, appearing the in the door to his office. "Good, good. I need to pull him from your scheduling for a few days, first, to write me a report."

"Good," Akira says, voice flat. "I was just thinking 'Hokage-sama wouldn't disrupt my strictly planned schedule like this with no warning'." Her tone really implies that Minato _would_ and that she wouldn't be happy about it.

The man in question smiles sheepishly, but neither denies nor apologizes. "Room Four, I think." Which has some very heavy privacy seals all over it. "I'll have someone deliver a single use cipher."

Aoba adjusts his glasses. "Just the incident we talked about, or ... the whole thing?"

Minato seems to consider. "Start with the relevant information. I'll leave what that is up to your judgment. But eventually I'll need everything. Do you think... your Kohai will have much extra information to add?"

"Yes," Aoba says. "About a few particular topics, at least."

Asked previously he would have said 'no'... or at least 'maybe'. Well. Underestimated how much she did know - there were those S-rank missions, of course, which he knows nothing about, but he wouldn't have expected her to have more information than him on _the Kyuubi attack_.

Minato makes a sound of rueful acknowledgement, probably thinking the same thing. "Fair point. We'll have to schedule something. That could be... tricky."

-

It isn't, really. All it requires is 'unexpectedly' calling Shikaku in while he's watching the twins and having him bring them to the Tower, too. They're babies, they're not exactly a security leak.

The mindscape Shikako draws them into is just as bleak and uninviting as last time. But now there is a rythmic shushing noise, a distant thunderbeat, on top of everything else. It's not oppressive, or even unwelcoming, but it is strange.

"What _is_ that?" Aoba asks, looking around. He's thirty, here, way more at ease with himself than the gangly teenager Minato saw in his office this morning.

Shikako crosses her arms defensively.

And that's when Minato clicks. "It's my heartbeat," he says, delighted.

"You were the one that picked me up!" Shikako says, _exactly_ as wet-cat-offended as Kakashi would be. He can almost see the hackles rising, so it's second nature to reach out and ruffle her hair, pull her against his side with an arm slung over her shoulder. He's absolutely ready to dodge the follow up elbow to the stomach - or kunai, if Kakashi is feeling particularly ornery - but it never eventuates. Shikako just lets out a disgruntled sound and settles, with a yawn.

"Anyway," she says, pointedly. "You better hurry up if you have questions. I'm about to fall asleep again."

They do rattle through as many of the points as they can - the urgent ones, anyway, talking about the Kyuubi leads to talking about the Uchiha. Shikako does know a surprising amount more than Aoba in some spheres, even if she's hesitant or oblique about it.

"How does a sensory Special Jounin know more about this than an Intel one?" Inoichi wonders, at one point.

Shikako huffs. "My teammates are Naruto Uzumaki - Jinchuriki - and Sasuke Uchiha - last of his clan. I have a vested interest in these two topics, okay? Also we ran into Akatsuki once and me and Kakashi-sensei got hospitalized so bad Tsunade-sama had to come back to heal us."

Minato dearly wants to follow up on both of those comments, but time is wasting.

"One more thing..." Shikako says, drawing away slowly. The darkness is getting heavier, warmer, like lying down in summer sunshine and feeling your eyelids grow heavier each blink you take. "Has Root been disbanded yet?"

Of all the things-

"Yes," Minato says cautiously. He doesn't really say 'Kakashi got tangled up in it and I didn't like it' because that hadn't been _the whole_ of his reasoning, but it had been there.

"Root?" Aoba echoes.

"Black ops group," Shikako says, dismissively, like that's something she's supposed to know about. "Run by Danzo Shimura. And you _really_ need to check that, because either he never shut it down or he restarts it pretty quickly."

Minato presses his lips together, displeased. "I will."

"Their HQ is somewhere underneath the village," Shikako says, yawning. "Or will be. I never got the exact location."

"Sai," Aoba says, suddenly, because it makes sense now. Why Tsunade had assigned him to investigate one of her own ninja like she had. Why he could find so little information.

"If Danzo is running his own black ops group, that's treason," Shikaku points out, laconically. He's not watching Minato, he's watching his daughter.

"He didn't support my posting as Hokage," Minato admits. It's not a _secret_ exactly, but everyone does like the myth that it was unanimous.

"What else?" Shikaku asks, softly.

"Can't prove it," Shikako says back. "And the rest... I'm not really sure when they happened." She sighs. "I'm pretty sure he's in contact with Orochimaru, as well. And at some point he made an alliance with Hanzo the Salamander - in return for troops to help depose the Third. ... No, that _must_ have already happened, because it killed one of the founders of Akatsuki and made them hate Konoha and stuff..." she rubs her eyes. "I think."

Aoba sucks in a shocked breath. No one else is really much better.

"That's probably the urgent stuff," she says, tiredly. "But um. Could you maybe look at something for me?"

"Sure," Minato says, expecting memories or something, and not for a seal to suddenly emblazon itself across the not-floor.

Everyone jumps back startled.

"Oops, sorry," Shikako says, sheepishly. "I've, uh, been thinking about contact and stuff. Don't really have the chakra to actually set them at this point and I can't _test_ them so-"

Minato creeps back in. "Oh wow," he says. The sealing style is... well, it's like remix of Jiraiya's. Some of it is recognizable, some of it very much isn't, new and fresh. "A kana chart and the underlying... is that speech?"

"Yeah," Shikako says, crouching and pointing out specific parts. "I think it'll need recorded soundbites, until I can study the soundwaves to generate them."

"Won't that use up chakra?" Shikaku asks, concerned.

Shikako shakes her head. "No, see. The chakra is gated in the speech seal, and I'd only use chakra to activate a particular circuit. A lot of chakra _control_ but the actual amount would be meaningless. Even for an infant."

Minato is nodding away. "Genuis," he murmurs. He probably won't be able to create it as is for her - copy it, certainly, but it's untested - but he could certainly make a variation for her. "I was going to suggest a modified seal space mental landscape," he offers. "So that you can access this without needing to wait for Inoichi."

They look at each other and shrug. "Both?" they offer, at the same time.

"When did you invent this?" Aoba asks, staring down at it.

Shikako shrugs. "Every second I'm not sleeping, really," she says. "I'm basically either exhausted or bored. This is at least something I can do in my head."

-

 

I did have some ideas about this [Shikako graduating early]! Like creating a solo learning program where she's still physically at the Academy but working on other assignments and stuff. And obviously a program aimed at prodigies would first be 'tested' on Itachi (and Kakashi probably gets suckered in to mentor as prodigy-in-chief and because he's actually good at teaching frighteningly smart people). So by the time Shikako gets there its already an established 'thing'.

 

-


	4. Konoha Sealing Boom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shikako and Minato nerding out over seals, basically.

The first years of Minato's reign as Hokage might come to be known as the Konoha Sealing Boom. A fact which he would be proud of, except it has very little to do with him.

He'd offered to help teach her - but suspected, even at the time, that anyone with the chops to modify a Hiraishin on the spot really didn't need much tutelage. And he's largely been right - Shikako Nara has poured a massive amount of seals into the Nara Research department - barrier seals, sensing seals, chakra control and elemental affinity and storage seals and anything else that catches her attention or flight of fancy.

"And, tada!" she says, showing him her latest creation, an entire meter wide scroll filled with tiny cramped handwriting. These meetings are technically 'mentorship' but if Minato is honest they mostly involve gushing about seals together. Which is nice. He has no one to gush with now that Jiraiya is out of the village. "Chakra storage! Now I can actually have a functional amount of chakra!"

She's seven. For an seven year old, she has a massive chakra bank. But Minato can't even imagine being restricted to such a tiny amount, to have to portion it out so precisely, which is probably why they've been working on this seal for a long time. "You've already applied it, haven't you?"

She grins, quicksilver, and bares her forearm. There's a black rectangle with a strange bump on one end, half filled with yellow and a stylised lightning bolt inside. For an earth nautre, she has a strange affinity with lightning, though he's not sure what the rest is supposed to represent. "Yep. And it's filling. So like. I know we agreed on the whole academy thing-"

"But you want to graduate."

"I am so bored," she says, dramatically but with a hint of real truth undercutting it. "It doesn't even have to be a full graduation. Just a couple of missions every now and then."

He considers it. It's a bad precedent, for sure. Especially given that he held Itachi back more than the Uchiha wanted - with supplemental training, sure, but still held back - but the truth is Shikako is far more than prepared.

"You'll have to demonstrate field fitness," he says, cautiously, checking the clock for the time.

She grins like she's already won. "You'll be surprised," she says.

There's a training field near the tower, public enough that anyone walking by is probably going to stop and see. Not usually one that gets used for any serious fighitng - too dangerous for that - but there'll be less grumbling if her skills are at least somewhat known.

Minato is surprised however, particularly when she stomps a foot and the ground cracks open. He's never seen Tsunade in action, but he's heard Jiraiya describe it wistfully more than enough. She's not as fast as him - even without the Hiraishi - but she makes the most of what she can do. And lasts longer than he expects. Once the fight is done, he can see her chakra seal has changed from yellow to red.

"Well, I think I can get Aoba to take you on a C-rank or two," he says.

-

 

Well by the time Shikako is old enough to talk Minato has probably had time to deal with Orochimaru and Danzo. Minato is very handy like that. Its the Naruto equivalent of 'a wizard did it'.

 


End file.
